Goodbye
by forsciencejohn
Summary: Sherlock's thoughts as he stands on the edge of St. Bart's roof. Brief mentions of suicide.


Sherlock was six years old when his father committed suicide. He never did find out why his father decided to take his own life; at the time he was too young to understand, and as he got older he determined the information irrelevant. All he knew was that one morning he awoke to the sound of his mother's screams upon discovering the man slumped over the desk in his study, an empty bottle of prescription pills and a glass of whiskey in front of him. He had left a note, of sorts—one word, written in black ink on cream colored parchment: _Goodbye_. His mother had been wrought with grief, unable to do anything but cry endlessly, clutching the note in her hand like a lifeline—which left his brother, thirteen at the time, to deal with the police. Sherlock hated seeing his mother in such a terrible state, unable to function, so he had just sat with her for hours, clutching her middle and letting her stroke his hair.

After that day, however, she became like a living statue. She spoke only when necessary, and even then her sentences were short and clipped, relaying the information needed and nothing more. She threw herself into her research, spending hours upon hours at the University and often not coming home for days at a time. But the thing that Sherlock found most disconcerting was that she never cried again. In fact, she never seemed to show any emotion at all, assuming a permanent mask of cold indifference that became eerily familiar. He remembered asking her one day, after she walked in the door of their house after spending a record 6 days away, why she didn't cry anymore. She had looked at him with those cold eyes, emotionless, and told him something that would send a chill over him, and in him, and eventually right through him as it settled and froze over his heart:

"All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage."

This is what runs through Sherlock's mind as he steps onto the edge of the roof at St. Bart's, with the sound of the gunshot that had sounded less than a minute ago still echoing in his head. In that moment, he hates Moriarty more than he ever has—for putting that gun in his mouth, for forcing Sherlock to do what he needed to do, for what he was about to do to John. He hates himself, too—if he didn't _care_ so much, this wouldn't be happening, the game wouldn't have to end. Still, he tries to imagine spending the past eighteen months without John and suddenly realizes that he might not even have been living—without John, he would have taken the cabbie's poison, and what if he had chosen wrong? He is pulled out of his reverie as he sees a cab pulling around the corner. Remembering what he came here to do, he takes out his phone, clicking on John's name and raising the device to his ear. John picks up immediately.

"Hello?"

"John."

"Sherlock, are you okay?" John obviously knows that something is wrong after finding Mrs. Hudson alive and well back at Baker Street, and he begins to rush towards the doors of the hospital. But he can't get any closer if this is going to work.

"Turn around and walk back the way you came."

"No, I'm coming in."

"Just do as I ask. Please." Sherlock knows that John will do exactly what he tells him to do, he always has, and Sherlock appreciates that fact now more than ever.

"Where?" John turns around and takes a few frantic steps in the other direction.

"Stop there." He's practically in the middle of the street. He looks around, confused.

"Sherlock?"

"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop."

John turns and Sherlock can hear him inhale sharply over the phone. "Oh God…"

Sherlock tries to keep his voice level as he continues. "I... I—I can't come down, so we'll just have to do it like this."

John's voice grows more anxious. "What's going on?"

Sherlock pauses. "An apology. It's all true."

"_What_?"

"Everything they said about me. I… invented Moriarty." Sherlock turns slightly to glance at the dead man on the ground, a halo of blood around his head and a manic smile still upon his face. When he turns back around John is still staring up at him.

"Why are you saying this?" He asks sharply, the first note of panic creeping into his voice.

Sherlock has never found it hard to lie to the people around him in order to get what he wants. And yet as he looks down at the man who has become his only friend, who has never paused to doubt or question him and has always trusted him explicitly, he struggles to allow the words past his lips.

"I'm a fake."

"Sherlock…" John isn't convinced, but he has to be, he _has_ to be, Sherlock can't bear to think of what will happen to him if he isn't.

"The newspapers were right all along," he chokes out. "I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly… in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty. For my own purposes."

"Okay shut up Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met, the first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?" John's voice is so fierce, so passionate, that it's all Sherlock can do not to tell him the whole situation outright, to make him understand. Instead, he perseveres.

"Nobody could be that clever."

There's no hesitation in John's response. "You could."

Sherlock laughs a humorless laugh as his friend gazes up at him desperately.

"I researched you. Before we met, I discovered everything that I could to impress you." He thinks about Sebastian and all of the people who teased him at University, and he hates himself for repeating their words. "It's a trick. Just a magic trick."

John shakes his head, steadfast.

"No. All right stop it now." He begins to walk back towards the hospital, and Sherlock's mind goes into a frenzy; _Please John, just accept it, everyone else can, why can't you?_

"No, stay exactly where you are! Don't move!" He reaches his hand out as if it will hold John there. John stops and back up, lifting his hand towards Sherlock in return.

"All right," he says quietly. Sherlock struggles to keep his breathing under control; this is the most important part, John can't be allowed to come any closer.

"Keep your eyes fixed on me!" He says, sounding slightly hysterical. "Please, will you do this for me?"

John's voice is tense. "Do what?"

"This phone call—it's, ah… it's my note. It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?" He remembers the crumpled parchment, pried from his mother's hands by the police, and he wonders if John will hold onto his words just as tightly. His best friend shakes his head and shuffles uncomfortably, unwilling to accept the evidence of what is inevitably about to happen.

"Leave a note when?"

Sherlock manages to deliver his next line perfectly, and his voice holds no emotion, only an air of finality, as he repeats his father's final thought.

"Goodbye, John."

He is distantly aware of John saying something into the phone as he lowers it from his ear, discarding it on the sidewalk behind me. He realizes that this is the last time he will get to talk to John face to face for months or even years, and he feels an uncharacteristically sentimental pang of regret at the subject of their final conversation. But he _has_ to go through with it, it's the only way to save John's life, and Mrs. Husdon's, and Lestrade's. He takes a deep breath and raises his arms, time slowing down as the moment finally arrives. He recalls his first crime scene with John, how he looked up at Sherlock with amazement and adoration in his eyes as he called him "Fantastic, amazing, brilliant."

Then he leans forward, and he is falling, falling, falling.


End file.
